The delivery pitfall

If you ask other product owners and product people, we all experience a similar thing. People see us product owners. But do they only see us as project managers, or do we act like them?

Last week, I spent time with my fellow product owners at Efteling.
We gathered for the PSPO-II (Advanced Product Owner) training.
It was a great 2 days where we not only received information from the amazing Stephan van Rooden, but it was a great way to exchange experiences.
And guess what, Efteling is not even that special with the challenges we face.
What a surprise :-).

I’m not your project manager

One of the biggest challenges we all experience, is that people see us THE “IT project manager”. When stuff is happening in the world of wonders, we are being asked to fix X on the website, Y in the app and if we are lucky Z on our chatbot platform.

On average it goes like this:

Stakeholder: “PO can you add this feature to platform x?”
PO: “Ofcourse, consider it done. When do you need it?”
Stakeholder: “Well, what’s the best thing you can do?”
PO: “Next sprint, or at last the sprint after that”.

In the last year or so, we have been trying hard to change the way people look at us. We focus on product value and we ask our stakeholders, how we can help them to reach their goals. But still, when the pressure is there we go back to old habits. You would think product owners are people too :-).

Lack of vision

And yes, it’s easy and pretty comfortable to blame other people that they see us as project managers. But to be honest, as you can see, we do act like them. We do treat our stakeholders like customers; “one feature? ok no problem, when do you want it delivered?“ and when it’s not delivered on time we take full responsible and start working harder to make the impossible, possible.
And if it doesn’t go fast enough, no problem we will add extra management to put the pressure up.

Two months ago I did another training with Stephan (Product Management) where he said something interesting. We are being pushed towards the role of delivery manager, because there is not enough focus on the bigger picture.

So what’s the company’s vision, the goal and the strategy. What’s our product vision; how’s our product going to help Efteling?

How to get there?

And this all sounds like basic theory, as it is one of the first things you hear when becoming a Product Owner. But with a lot of things; knowing is 1, but getting there (and act like it) is 2.

So in the next couple of weeks, I will start with understanding our company vision (and it’s pillars) better. By understanding I mean, in a way I can easily tell other’s. And I will make sure my team can do the same thing.

And in the meantime, there is a 2 questions I need to answer. And maybe, you can help me out.

1. The word product confuses me; in my case our main product is a theme park resort. My product is an app, but within a digital environment with other platforms like a website, a chatbot etc.
   How would you define our product? As a whole, or as individual products.

2. When I joined I read the product vision of our app and thought, ok. It’s kind of right still, and I will update in the next couple of months. Now almost 2 years later what’s the best thing to do. Start over? Or update the old one?

3. Any suggestions on how to “manage” the change towards stakeholders.
   Do we involve the stakeholders to create the product vision?

Off we go

A great transition for all of us here. It will be challenging for sure, but I think it will really help us creating better products and have more fun creating them. I will promise, I will share my experiences here.

Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions. Thanks for reading!